The Philippines Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) has given potential bidders more time to prepare offers for the Davao Sasa Port Modernization PPP project.

Spacifically, the deadline to submit proposals for the project has been moved from 11 January to 26 February.

In July 2015, DOTC received qualification documents to carry out the project. Finally a total of five groups were shortlisted for the project:

• San Miguel Holdings Corp. - APM Terminals Management (Singapore) Pte. Ltd. consortium,
• port tycoon Enrique Razon Jr.’s International Container Terminal Services Inc.,
• Asian Terminals Inc - DP World FZE consortium,
• Portek International Pte. Ltd. - National Marine Corp. consortium and
• Bollore Africa Logistics.

The project is scheduled to be awarded by April 2016. The project's first phase is scheduled to be completed by 2018 and the port is expected to be full operational by the end of 2019.

The preferred bidder will be responsible for the construction and modernization of the existing port including the new apron, linear quay, expansion of the back-up area, container yards, warehouses, and the installation of new equipment like seven gantry cranes and 13 rubber-tyred gantry. The dedicated container handling facilities will have an initial design capacity of 1,900 container ground slots to a minimum of 2,700 container ground slots. It will have an annual capacity of 1.2 million 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs).

The project will be developed on a design, build, finance, operate and maintenance (DBFOM) basis. The concession contract will have a period of 30 years.

The total project investment is estimated at P17.46 billion (US$370.6 million).

The Development Bank of the Philippines and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) are acting as the transaction advisors to DOCT for the two-stage bidding to be conducted in accordance with the build-operate-transfer (BOT) Law.